MPs' expenses: Lord Tyler claimed for mortgage, then 'sold' flat to his daughter

Lord Tyler of Linkinhorne, a Liberal Democrat peer, used taxpayers' money to
pay the mortgage interest on his family-owned flat in Westminster – and then
sold his share to his daughter a month after he quit as an MP.

Lord TylerPhoto: APEX

By Christopher Hope

10:45AM BST 03 Jun 2009

The peer bought the flat in Westminster for £275,000, with his wife Nicola and his daughter Sophie, in November 2001.

Lord Tyler, then Paul Tyler, MP for North Cornwall, claimed tens of thousands of pounds in mortgage interest payments in the run-up to the 2005 general election.

Documents lodged with the fees office show that Lord Tyler claimed mortgage interest payments of more than £9,200 in 2004-05.

After he stood down as an MP in 2005, he arranged for the ownership to be passed to his daughter, who took over the mortgage.

Land Registry documents show that it was finally paid off last April.

On Tuesday Lord Tyler said he transferred the flat to his daughter in June 2005 "when my retirement from the Commons was expected to mean that I would spend less nights in London".

He said Miss Tyler had paid to buy his and his wife's share of the property – but he declined to say how much.

He said: "When we transferred the flat to her in 2005 we paid off £100,000 of the mortgage and she took on responsibility for the other £100,000."

Lord Tyler added: "There has been no capital gain on this flat, and we have none of us made a profit and, as an MP, I voted for reform of the expenses system and for greater transparency."

He said the claims were "wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred" for performing his parliamentary duties, since his main home was in the constituency.

"My expenses were regularly checked with the fees office, acknowledged to be modest, 'value for money' and there was never any 'grounds for a suggestion of a misuse of public money'."